Skills

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Skills

Foreign-born workers increasingly can be found in occupations across the skills spectrum in many countries—high-, middle-, and low-skilled. While much of the focus in the United States is on immigrants in high- and low-skilled professions, an increasing share are working in middle-skilled jobs. The research here examines immigrant workers by skill levels—which sectors they are working in, what share of the workforce they constitute, and how they fare compared to their native-born peers.

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This report evaluates the participation of immigrants in the German workforce development system, highlighting that immigrants are less likely than nonimmigrants to engage in further education or skills training, detailing the various barriers immigrants face in accessing programs for skills development, and proposing policy reforms to reduce these barriers.

An examination of Canada's workforce development system and policies at a time of high unemployment among Canada's immigrants, this report covers why a growing number of policymakers think that the system may need reform. It also offers recommendations for more effective workforce development policies.

This report, the first in a series examining workforce development systems in three countries, focuses on the increasingly employer-led and flexible UK system that operates alongside centralized immigration and employment policies.

More than ever, human capital is seen as the ultimate resource. As a result, policymakers face the challenge of ensuring that workers have the skills and abilities to find productive employment and contribute to growth, innovation, and competitiveness in constantly evolving labor markets. Migrants’ skills are often seen as an untapped resource that, with the right formula of policies, can bolster competitiveness and fuel productivity.

This policy brief, which concludes a nine-brief series examining what is known about the linkages between migration and development, suggests that the policy framework on migration and development remains relatively weak, and few development agencies have made it a priority to promote the positive impact of international migration.

Skilled migration is often thought to have overwhelmingly negative effects on countries of migrant origin. Yet recent research and policy experience challenge this assumption and offer a more nuanced picture, as this brief explains. Countries of origin and destination can in fact benefit from skilled migration when it is correctly structured, and efforts to restrict skilled nationals’ ability to leave their countries of origin may have unintended costs, in addition to being ethically problematic.

More than ever before, human capital is recognized as the one resource that can propel firms and economies to the top tier of competitiveness. With substantial increases in the supply and demand for skilled workers, governments will have to think carefully about how they engage with the global talent pool, and how they can select most effectively from it.